Engage the community to deliver real value
So far in our Reimagine Market Access series, we have reflected on the importance of local access strategies supported by local data and insights. We have seen how localised strategies can help understand the impact of interventions at a more granular level, and support the design of services and platforms that meet the needs of patients and the local healthcare system.
We can even take these insights to the predictive level and forecast how micro populations will respond to a particular medical intervention. This is really powerful and opens up enormous opportunities for industry, healthcare systems and patients.
Taking a community based approach to solve community based problems
Localised insights and a granular understanding of patient behaviours is indeed powerful. However, designing services and solutions “beyond the pill” needs to happen in collaboration with community stakeholders. Increasingly, we see that solutions designed with the best of intentions end up with poor user adoption, or the patient is faced with a complex array of competing options. This is most common when it comes to digital health applications.
Engaging community stakeholders is a key success factor in both design and adoption of local services and solutions. Understanding the role of the ecosystem beyond the patient and HCP is a big part of this. Who are the influencers when it comes to service adoption? Who, within the broader healthcare system, and external to the healthcare system, should be involved? These might be pharmacists, local patient groups, dieticians, psychologists and retail businesses. In a recent example the University of Texas developed a diabetes management program involving retail businesses, cooking classes, nutritional counselling, fitness tracking technology, telecoms and primary care providers that reduced average HbA1C levels by as much as 1%.
Not only did the ecosystem provide a more holistic longitudinal understanding of patient health at the population and patient level, it also provided a more realistic setting for impactful health and lifestyle intervention. More fundamentally, it tapped into the principle that engaged patients have better adherence and better health outcomes.
Reframing the value story
Furthermore, engaging with the community increases the chances of well-defined interventions that target socioeconomic challenges and drive behavioural change. Given what we know about social determinants of health, this is a huge part of improving health outcomes and addressing health inequality. Measurable improvements in outcomes and health equity are the foundation of a robust commercial proposition.
Defining the proposition in collaboration with local healthcare systems provides an opportunity to reframe the value discussion away from traditional value metrics of cost effectiveness based on limited clinical trial data. It opens the door to more inclusive elements of value that really matter within the community, especially in more integrated healthcare systems. Reducing carer burden, minimising travel, improving adherence, reducing pain and increasing productivity all have an impact on the economic prosperity of communities.
Now, more than ever, there is a better understanding of the importance of addressing health inequity. In the UK, the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the wide disparities that exist in health outcomes across the country, with the most deprived communities suffering from the worst outcomes. Interventions that support the “levelling up” agenda should be rewarded.
Conclusion
Throughout this series we have explored the increasing potential of localised commercial strategies that build on the abundance of localised health and non health data. We believe there is untapped commercial opportunity and that truly collaborative partnerships with communities to develop local solutions will improve outcomes for industry, healthcare systems and patients.
We hope you enjoyed the series and look forward to your feedback.
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